By PAUL BEDARD • 7/11/16 7:29 AM

Legal immigrants surging into the United States to become citizens will add nearly 15 million new voters by 2036, and that's a huge boon to the Democratic Party, according to a top immigration expert.

"This is not a secret. They are just bringing in people who agree with them," Steven A. Camarota, director of research for the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, said of President Obama's immigration initiatives, which Hillary Clinton plans to expand on, including amnesty.

At a minimum, the surge will push the Republican Party to the left to compete for the new voters, who polls show support social welfare programs typically opposed by the GOP, said Camarota.

"It's hard to see how the Republican Party doesn't move significantly to the left just to accommodate new voters," he said. "Immigrant voters are Democrats, about two-to-one ... Immigrant voters tend to be liberal."



Camarota has charted the impact of legal and illegal immigration on politics by counting up how many new voters would be added under current law and proposed reforms. Legal immigration, he said, will add 5 million voters by 2024, 8.4 million by 2028, 11.6 million by 2032 and 14.9 million by 2036. Those numbers double under amnesty.

"The Democratic establishment understands keeping legal immigration at this level fundamentally transforms the electorate," he said.

The impact has been seen before, when immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island in the early 1900s, and their children born in the U.S., got behind former President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal of social programs, Camarota said.

To pad their lead in voters, he said, Democrats shrug off the problems increased populations have on communities.

"It's an enormous political gain for the Democratic Party, and that's one of the reasons why they tend to overlook its impact on other things that they are supposed to care about," Camarota said.

"They're not very concerned about the impact on schools and just say spend more money, they're not that concerned about potential jobs competition, particularly at the bottom end of the labor market, they say they'll help ameliorate that with some new government programs."

And he added that a more liberal electorate will push policymakers in their direction.

"That's democracy," he said.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/le...rticle/2596105